With the continuing development of solar energy, related productions of solar energy and materials innovation are escalating, and materials applied to the heating storage become the focus of attention in the industry. Due to high storage density, high heat resistance, high conductivity which, low expansion, easy to control, etc., phase change energy storage materials are widely used in building energy efficiency, waste heat recovery and solar heating systems. In this paper，the research progress on phase-change thermal storage materials used in solar energy heating and their classifications and performances were summarized. At the same time, a suitable solar energy application with phase-change thermal storage materials was introduced. The developing trends about phase-change composites materials and phase-change materials microencapsulated were presented, and research focus of the phase-change thermal storage materials qas analyzed. The phase-change thermal storage technology is the key to solve the solar energy instability and intermittent problems, and it is the future direction of the solar energy heating technology in promotion applications.